What's the solution ??

[kentuck]

What do we do when we are stuck in a quagmire in the Middle East, which is draining about $10 billion dollars per month from our economy? What do we do when we are borrowing trillions of dollars in order for our leaders to convince themselves they are on a righteous course? What do we do when the dollar is falling and the stock market is tanking? What do we do as we are headed to a recession, or even worse, a depression? What's the solution?

The only thing I could think of would be to bring all our troops home and cut the defense budget in half. Money doesn't protect us from our enemies. Then we could make foreign goods more expensive than American-made goods, by putting a tariff on all these companies that move their jobs overseas. That is due justice, if nothing else. Also, we should put people to work by the millions in re-building our bridges and infrastructure. It is time to do something for the American people for a change.

[onyourleft]

1. Agree, Kentuck. However, are any of our "leaders"...

...suggesting any of these measures?

[Angela Shelley]

2. Hi Kentuck, praise and admiration for looking for a solution

... but ... something to think about.

Who are the "enemies" which you mentioned?

Giving millions of people work building the infrastructure is just as expensive as keeping them employed in Iraq. I´m all for ending the occupation of Iraq, but I wonder where all those soldiers will work next.

The solution to all of the problems in the US today lies in one concept: Personal Accountability

[kentuck]

5. When you spend a billion on defense?

in the end, what do you have?

When you spend a billion on a bridge? In the end, what do you have? No they are not the same.

[OneBlueSky]

3. at some point, there will be no choice but to initiate a new New Deal . . .

consisting of massive public works projects that employ all those people who have been downsized or outsourced out of a job . . . the public will demand it, and any chance of recovery will require it . . . whoever is president damn well better start studying up on how FDR did it . . .

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

4. Too late.

This has been looming for a long time. Instead of doing anything about it the politicians simply chose to look the other way.

We've are only beginning to see the real carnage. The ripple effects of the collapse of the housing bubble are just starting to spread. The cost of the idiotic war (leaving off the moral, legal, and human disaster that it is) has yet to come home.

There are no immediate, or short term, solutions. There may not be any solutions that will restore the economy to what it was.

As to your recommendations there are major downsides.

If we (hopefully) cut the military budget to realistic levels - even 50% is too small IMO - they will have to stop the war and cut the number troops. That would put a lot of people out of work which would further drain the economy.

If we start putting tariffs on foreign goods we would increase inflation because so many people depend on cheaper foreign goods just to get by. Also, the foreign countries will not sit idly by and let us undercut their market here without retaliating in kind.

The dirty little secret is that the corporations are forced to move overseas for cheaper labor because they simply can't compete with foreign corporations while using expensive American labor. If they can't compete they die.

We, like the Romans and the Brits, have become dependent on our client states for cheap labor and cheap material. In a sense, the roles have changed. They have become the masters or our economy. And, of our foreign policy. We are forced to "protect our vital national interests" through brute force, which is a very expensive, and self-defeating, way of maintaining our economy.

Solution? The only workable solution is to accept our decline to 2nd rate power and deal with it in the way most of Europe has done.

The magic pill bottle is empty.

[undergroundpanther]

6. One thing that has to go

Is the idea of growth and money.


"If monetary value is attached to something it will be exploited until it's gone. That's what happens when you convert living beings to cash. That conversion, from living forests to lumber, schools of cod to fish sticks, and onward to numbers on a ledger, is the central process of our economic system." Derrick Jensen



Our economy and our numbers (as in births)must stop growing bigger.Our civilization has become a cancer,and there is not enough resources left in this earth to keep it propped up forever. The myth of faster growth as an imperative is killing everything.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7078857.stm
It's not just the economy..affecting us, this sick growth imperative effects everything else too.Civilization's demands for growth is killing our planet.

Chickens cannot take the market's demands to grow faster..
http://www.cok.net/magazine/16/02.php

Other animals can't keep up with demand either
http://www.uta.edu/huma/agger/fastcapitalism/2_2/best.html